


you feel like home to me

by ChloeRhiannonX



Category: Total Drama (Cartoon)
Genre: Baking, Cannon universe, Domestic Fluff, Exes to Lovers, F/M, Grocery Shopping, Lockdown AU, Reunions, Self-Isolation, Stuck in your best friends apartment with your ex, Zoom calls, arts and crafts, cast reunion, isolation au, quarantine au, workouts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24943459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeRhiannonX/pseuds/ChloeRhiannonX
Summary: If in January, you had asked Courtney Taylor how she felt about being quarantined for three months in her best friends’ apartment with her ex-boyfriend from six years ago she wouldn’t have laughed. She would have found it to be a very odd yet specific question and assumed the person asking it was some rabid Total Drama fan obsessed with a Duncney reunion.
Relationships: Courtney/Duncan (Total Drama)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	1. March

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is canon up to the end of World Tour. Enjoy.

If in January, you had asked Courtney Taylor how she felt about being quarantined for three months in her best friends' apartment with her ex-boyfriend from six years ago she wouldn't have laughed. She would have found it to be a very odd yet specific question and assumed the person asking it was some rabid Total Drama fan obsessed with a Duncney reunion. She had unfortunately encountered on many more than occasion one such fan and she was starting to get tired.

Courtney couldn't say Total Drama had ruined her life because, if anything, it started it. While several other "campers" had faded out of the limelight, and a few others were trying too desperately to stay in it, Courtney had somehow found the balance between reaching for her dreams while also maintaining a healthy online following. Her regular updates on college and activism were met with 88% praise, 7% slaughter, and 5% when are you getting back together with Duncan?

It was tiring work, but she felt more accomplished than she had thought possible coming off that island.

Her name was household amongst her own age group, and Courtney was regularly turning down emails from other reality shows, but she wasn't sixteen anymore. She wasn't young and dumb and reckless.

That's how she ended up in LA in the first place. She had been blinded by Teen Weekly magazine into giving an interview post-Total Drama, only for them to flip the switch and hound her about her upcoming projects. She had no upcoming projects. She had just graduated high school and had her heart set on attending the University of Toronto as a political science major, but that was boring news in the world of showbiz.

It was there, walking the streets of sunny Los Angeles, that Courtney found herself at home. She found a café to sit and sip her morning coffee and a boardwalk on the beach she loved to sit at and breathe in the ocean air. There was no ocean in Toronto, and once she found it, Courtney didn't think she could give it up.

UCLA was not the school of Courtney's original dream, but once she enrolled for their spring semester it quickly became the real reality she had craved coming off a backwards television show.

She was stopped several times in the first few weeks on campus, asked questions she was happy to answer, as well as catching not-so-sneaky peers lifting their camera phones ever so slightly in her direction. She smiled graciously and was polite, even on the tough questions that she wanted to avoid, yet they sometimes haunted her.

As perfect as she felt in the daytime, Courtney found herself laying in her dorm room most nights (grateful to have snagged a single room to not have to deal with a snoring roommate) unable to close her eyes. The ceiling above made for better staring space than the back of her eyelids where countless memories replayed in ways she couldn't tell if they had happened like that or not. Her mind was twisting what she wanted; what she _had_ wanted. Past tense. She shook her mind free of such ridiculous notions that she was still sixteen and naive, and that is how Courtney ended up on the party scene.

Disco lights and thumping music became the backdrop of Courtney's night-time routine. She'd finish classes, get dressed up in her dorm room, and then spend hours through the night dancing and drinking and saying no-thank-you to the white powder passed between her friends.

They weren't really friends, as such, just drinking buddies who happened to live in her building. It was comfortable but there was no love shared or lost between her and them, though she watched through beer-stained eyes as they shared a lot of lust between each other. And she pretended to join in for a time, letting the boys kiss and grope, and the occasionally shared bed for the night didn't hurt her ego, but it didn't make her feel anything. So, she tried the girls too, who at the tender age of college years old were more than happy to oblige her. It helped her sleep, but it didn't heal her heart.

Courtney didn't refer to herself famous mostly because she didn't believe she was. While the stares on campus had dimmed down, and she couldn't remember the last time someone in her class had stopped her before a lecture to ask for some juicy gossip, her social media presence grew exponentially. Every day she woke up to new followers and new likes and new comments all because of a few aesthetically pleasing pictures of herself at UCLA's inverted fountain.

And then just before Christmas of her junior year, the inevitable happened.

She always guessed she couldn't be the only former Total Drama cast member to grace the hills of Los Angeles, but running into Geoff in a club she couldn't remember the name of while unable to see straight was not how she thought it would happen. Better yet, she didn't think that after exchanging numbers and sharing an uber she would end up at his apartment, passed out on his couch for six hours before being awoken by a very surprised Bridgette who only had two take-out coffee cups in her hand.

While Courtney was grateful to have friends in her life again, people who at least understood the Big Experience that changed her life, they were both too very much in love to fully see her. And that was the beginning of the end for Courtney.

* * *

If in January, you had asked Duncan Evans how he felt about being quarantined for three months in his best friends' apartment with his ex-girlfriend from six years ago he wouldn't have laughed. He would have questioned which one in his head, but out loud he would have flipped the person off.

If there was one thing Duncan hated more than Total Drama, it was people who wanted to talk to him about Total Drama. Everything from the Island to the plains of Africa, people just thought they were entitled to it all. It drove him crazy when he found recognition on the streets, to the point where, after his final stint in juvie (though he didn't know it was the final one at the time) he shaved his head and grew out his stubble just in time to turn eighteen and not head off to college like everyone else his age seemed to be doing.

He was stuck at home, being hounded by the press who seemed to somehow find his phone number regardless of how many times he changed it. He didn't feel like a failure in the way he had expected to. He didn't feel defeated or rundown. He just felt tired. Not winning a million dollars, he guessed, did that to a person.

For him, it was hard to believe that Total Drama had been such a short amount of time in his life. One summer of crazy, followed by one year of crazier, followed by a final summer of what-in-the-fuck. It was only a year of his life in the grand scheme of things, though Duncan had no grand scheme to be seen.

His father yelled and his mother cried and eventually, he got the job at the bar just to be out of the house. He had learnt to "pull pints" in England because he couldn't afford to pay to use the tight-packed club's tiny stage to practice playing his guitar, and he didn't think the skill would come in handy once he got home. Though mostly because at the time he didn't think he was ever going to go home.

While Duncan could hate Total Drama in a myriad of ways, he couldn't deny the freedom it had given him. Stuck at home in middle-of-no-where Canada had done him no good. When faced with what to do on a Saturday night, burning tyres and spray-painting walls was the extent of his excitement. He never pictured leaving his small town. He never pictured being on such a huge plane, travelling to countries and cities he was sure hadn't existed before he heard of them. And so what if it was all televised. So what if a couple of million viewers watched him make a fool of himself. He was free.

The group chat died a quiet death. After spending two summers forced together, it was clear very few Total Drama cast members wanted to see each other in their own time. There were no public arguments, no slander as one would have expected, there was very little of anything. A meme. A reaction gif. Silence for two weeks. No one dredged up the painful memories. No one wanted to talk about the time they shared.

Courtney left first. And Duncan couldn't say he didn't notice. It was the longest he had looked at the group chat text screen because her name had flashed up in a notification and his breath held itself tight in his chest.

Several others followed suit, but Duncan paid less attention to them.

In the end, Geoff created a second group chat, escaping the pillars of those who remained in the first one that no one really wanted to interact with and had only been added out of politeness. The second chat was the guys that Duncan guessed redefined his life.

When Duncan returned home after the end of the second summer, his former friends had laughed at him, and while he tried to laugh along, he didn't feel the same way anymore. So he stopped speaking to them all together and instead focused on the guys in the chat that, while he was sure he would never have been friends with under normal circumstances, at least shared the Big Experience that had changed his life.

Support didn't quite cover what happened in that group chat. Trent sent selfies from the recording studio every other week, though never said anything more than I'm-Working-On-Things. DJ went off to veterinary college, close to his home so he could stay with his mama. Owen was eating his way across the country and didn't hold back with his mouth-watering pictures. Noah said nothing but sent eye-roll reaction gifs of himself from the Island.

Visits were rare, being spread so over the country, and became even rarer once Geoff announced he and Bridgette were going to be shipping it to LA.

Duncan had been invited before to the city of Los Angeles on more than one occasion. It was the hub of reality television, actually most television, and Duncan wanted to be as far away from that life as he possibly could get.

Somehow in February, he found himself watching a rerun of Where Are They Now?: Total Drama Edition. He cringed when he heard his name, showing the viewers how little he had achieved in his near four years off the show. He went to switch the television off, not wanting to hear a word more, but her name came after him, and his finger hovered over the off button a little too long.

The show pushed him to take the step. Tired of living his life in the one-bedroom he rented, earning money he didn't spend, being alone and tired all the time. He called Geoff first and then booked the plane ticket. He didn't know how long he was going to crash on their couch for. He didn't know how long he was going to be in Los Angeles for. All Duncan knew was a change of scenery was what he needed when he stepped off the plane and into the LA sun. And that was the beginning of the end for Duncan.

* * *

**March 19** **th** **2020**

The lockdown didn't exactly come out of nowhere. Courtney had been monitoring the news for hours a day, waiting for someone to do something.

It was just typical of her luck that this would happen when her lease was about to expire, and she didn't have many plans to extend her contract. She had already packed up what she could of her belongings in her tiny apartment, most of it in storage for the time being until she could find another place of her own. In the meantime, Bridgette had agreed to let her stay at hers, just without her.

Bridgette and Geoff had hauled themselves onto one of the last flights in Canada, wanting to spend time with their family since no one knew how long this was going to go on for. Courtney didn't feel the same sentiment.

She hadn't been to Bridgette and Geoff's in a few months, not for any particular avoidance reasons, just Bridgette had started to come to her for their post-work girly evenings, claiming to need some space from her boyfriend. If Courtney didn't know any better, she would have read that as a red flag, but she did know Bridgette and Geoff, or more so, BridgetteandGeoff because one didn't exist without the other.

Unlocking the front door to their apartment, Courtney was greeted with the warmth of their place. It was homey and quaint in a way that Courtney had never quite mastered at her own place. Their home looked lived in, loved in, while Courtney's apartment always looked like a show-room model.

She loved the familiar worn-out couch that had made the move from the two previous apartments in one piece, she loved the memories of the movie nights and the drunk nights and the crying nights. She loved the way it always smelled like cookies, even when Bridgette wasn't baking, and she loved the way the light shone through the all the open windows, giving the apartment a glow that Courtney could only place as home.

What she didn't love was as she wheeled her suitcase over to the coffee table, her ex-boyfriend walked out of the bathroom dressed only in a towel around his waist.


	2. April - June

**april**

If in April, you had asked Courtney Taylor how she felt about being quarantined for three months in her best friends' apartment with her ex-boyfriend from six years ago she wouldn't have laughed. She would have glared at best, but most likely she wouldn't have been able to hear you over the loud music she was trying to drown out by having her airpods at the highest possible volume.

Courtney found most of her time spent in the bedroom, her laptop placed on her lap, surrounded by an array of snacks to stop her from needing to enter the kitchen. She was working as hard as she could, taking far more phone calls than she had anticipated, but not being able to see her colleagues in person left her feeling a pain in her chest she couldn't quite place.

It wasn't that she hated Duncan, or even that he so far had been that bad to live with, but every time she saw his face her heart broke down and she either wanted to cry or throw something at him. So, she spent her days holed up in the master bedroom of her best friends' apartment.

Not that Bridgette had escaped this lightly. Courtney had never yelled at her before, but she had not held back the second the phone had been answered. How could she do this to her? Throw a surprise in her face? Throw a surprise that felt like a brick?

Bridgette hadn't said much, just apologised; said she hadn't known. Courtney hadn't listened.

Now she was lonelier than ever. Trapped in a tiny apartment in a tinier bedroom with no one to call and vent to.

Her work phone rang again.

**april**

If in April, you had asked Duncan Evans how he felt about being quarantined for three months in his best friends' apartment with his ex-girlfriend from six years ago he wouldn't have laughed. He would have continued walking, wondering why someone in the grocery store was standing within six feet of him.

They were finally restocking the toilet paper and he announced as much to the apartment, loud enough for his voice to travel through the interior walls.

He set about putting away the groceries, his back to the wall where Courtney's bedroom door stood. Duncan didn't see it crack open or see her slip through into the living room. He didn't see her standing, watching. He didn't see her creeping her way up behind him and swiping a chocolate bar from the top of one of the bags. But he did see her retreat, with a smile on her face, the same one reflected on him.

**may**

If in May, you had asked Courtney Taylor how she felt about being quarantined for three months in her best friends' apartment with her ex-boyfriend from six years ago she wouldn't have laughed. She would have chewed her lip and said she hadn't she really noticed him there. Until the one Thursday morning in May when she thought Duncan was still sound asleep. She slipped quietly from her isolated room, ready to start her day with a meal, only to be startled as she rounded the couch.

Duncan grinned up at her from the floor, laughing at her embarrassed face.

Courtney turned away, hurrying towards the kitchen, averting her gaze from Duncan's naked chest.

"You've seen more of me than this," he called out, his words light.

Courtney busied herself in the kitchen, hastily starting the blender to not hear Duncan's grunts as he continued his sit-ups. She pulled out her phone, trying to reread her texts messages, trying to scroll through social media, trying to think of something other than her ex-boyfriend behind her.

She tried to escort herself back to her bedroom, but he had his eyes trained on her.

"Must you do that half-naked in the communal area?" She asked, her voice not as edged as she had hoped.

"The spare bedroom is too small," he shrugged, getting to his feet.

Courtney remembered being eye-level with him, but without her heels on, he stood a few inches taller. She titled her head slightly as he took steps toward her. Her lips parted and her cheeks heated, and she didn't say a word before rushing back behind her closed door.

**may**

If in May, you had asked Duncan Evans how he felt about being quarantined for three months in his best friends' apartment with his ex-girlfriend from six years ago he wouldn't have laughed. He would have sighed. He was tired. He was tired of being trapped inside a tiny apartment with someone who said no more than three words to him a week.

He was tired when the email came through on his phone from a television studio he'd had nothing to do with for over six years.

Duncan wasn't even halfway through the first paragraph before the texts came pouring in.

_did we get the same email?_

_who's down for it?_

_blegh_

_what email?_

_man I'm so down for this!_

Duncan wasn't even halfway through replying when Courtney let herself into his room. Something about the phone clutched in her hand and the bewildered look on her face told him that she had the same notification.

* * *

It was less than two weeks later when Duncan found himself propped up at the kitchen table, his phone resting on top of several cereal boxes, his face lit up on the screen. He was the first person in, the first time he had been early to anything, especially something relating to the horror show he was about to endure all over again.

Courtney had been quiet again since the email had come through. Duncan had no doubt she wanted nothing to do with this upcoming call, would rather isolate herself away and pretend her past had never happened. Duncan knew he didn't help her with that.

Face after face, box after box, his phone lit up with the smiling faces of his former castmates. And the Total Drama zoom reunion began.

There was laughs and glares and stories. The catching up wasn't as awkward as Duncan, and he was sure everyone else, had anticipated. It felt like spending time with friends, even if some of them no longer were.

Lindsay shared pictures of several baking fails.

Bridgette berated several people who mentioned Tiger King.

Several people mentioned losing their job, which was when they turned their attention onto fan questions.

_What is everyone doing now?_

_Do you regret the show?_

_When was the last time you saw someone in the cast?_

"Not as long ago as I think she would have liked," Duncan joked, causing some raised eyebrows.

He watched as Courtney grimaced, closing her eyes, and turning slightly away from her computer screen. And Duncan took the challenge. He pushed himself up from the kitchen table, forcing his bare feet across the kitchen floor.

There was one room in the apartment Duncan had yet to go in, but now he was going to break his self-imposed rules, as he thrust open the door and threw himself onto the bed.

Courtney jostled slightly at the weight of him now next to her. Her face was confused, not as red and angry as Duncan was expecting. He watched her with an audacious smile, and she stared right back with curious eyes.

And that was how the Duncney reunion rumours started.

**june**

If in June, you had asked Courtney Taylor how she felt about being quarantined for three months in her best friends' apartment with her ex-boyfriend from six years ago she wouldn't have laughed. She would have waved it off with a fake smile and assumed you wanted her to pose for a photograph before she moved on with her life.

Social media was a big part of Courtney's life and career and since Duncan decided to make the world aware they were stuck together, her stats were soaring. She had prepared to be mad at him, to yell and scream as soon as the reunion had been over and done with, but one look on her twitter page (and several text messages from her publicist), Courtney felt a slight relief.

She couldn't say she hadn't feared losing her audience during this lockdown. Stuck at home doing nothing didn't make for good media content. It was the reason she had agreed to the reunion in the first place; she needed something to talk about. Courtney just hadn't anticipated the talking to be about her reuniting with her ex-boyfriend.

Deciding to embrace it, Courtney started a Livestream one night without her roommate knowing. She knew he was in the living room, playing on the Xbox Geoff had left set up for him, unsuspecting to her antics. She'd thought on the idea for half a day and decided it was time; and why not bring an audience?

Holding her phone in front of her, camera facing Duncan's confused face, Courtney pulled the black beanie he had been keeping tight over his head, releasing his dark black waves of hair to tumble down his forehead.

There was no protesting like she thought there may be. Duncan allowed her to march him into the bathroom with a kitchen chair and an electric razor, while thousands of people tuned in.

**june**

If in June, you had asked Duncan Evans how he felt about being quarantined for three months in his best friends' apartment with his ex-girlfriend from six years ago he wouldn't have laughed. He would have looked wistfully across to the young woman sat beside him, to the young woman he wasn't sure he knew anymore.

She'd passed him the first bottle of wine, batting at his arm until he'd moved onto the floor with her, scolding him as if he'd already spilled the bottle onto their friend's couch.

Duncan had laughed, pouring the glasses, drinking it down merrily. He had been prepared for the yelling, for the screaming and the fighting, because that was what he remembered. But Courtney held her face. She had held her face since he'd moved into her zoom box uninvited. And now they were getting drunk on the floor in an alternate universe.

Opening up the second bottle, Duncan chanced a glance in Courtney's direction, watching her sad eyes reflect his. Her head was swaying slightly, but she held his gaze fiercely.

"Why did you cheat on me?" She shoved his chest and she slapped his face and she forced him down without moving from her spot on the floor.

Duncan blinked, turning his head away. He couldn't face her as he thought, as he turned the words in his head, searching for the answer to a question he'd held close to his heart for far too long.

"I don't know," he tumbled out. "I don't know why I did any of it."

Courtney snorted, trying to hold his gaze, but he wouldn't look her way. He could see her take another swig of her wine and wipe her lips, but his eyes looked straight ahead, staring blankly at the cream couch in front of him.

"You have to do better than 'I don't know' with me, Duncan."

He did have to do better. Duncan held himself to a quality now he hadn't before, but the words didn't form the way he wanted them to. He sank back deep inside himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO! HAPPY UPDATE!
> 
> I've decided on three chapters which means there is one more left.
> 
> I'm not as happy with this chapter as I was with the first, but I'm happy I wrote something so here we are! I hope you enjoy it and this story I'm telling.
> 
> Love,
> 
> ChloeRhiannonX

**Author's Note:**

> Ah yes, the cute Duncney quarantine AU no one asked for. You're welcome.
> 
> This was largely inspired by me reading some post-show fics followed by me crying over The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and feeling like I'll never know true love. And, the fact we're all in quarantine yay! I know this is coming very late into the lockdown but better late than never, right?
> 
> Also, March 19th is my birthday and as a present the world went to shit.
> 
> This is going to be anywhere between 2 – 4 chapters long. I have no idea when I'll update. Stay tuned.
> 
> Love,
> 
> ChloeRhiannonX


End file.
